Going the post-grad route seems to be working out for Mackinnon
As a kid from a small town, it may be cliche to say it but Brandon Mackinnon just wanted a chance. By choosing to go the post-grad route, the 6-foot-7, 285 pounder thought maybe he was doing just that.
Now, with offers coming in well before he has even played a snap in 2020, he’s feeling very good about the decision and the road ahead.
“I was a very young senior,” he told CavsCorner recently. “I’m 17 and I don’t turn 18 until October. I got moved up in school, first grade or something like that. I don’t know the whole story but we’re here now.”
Here, for the moment at least, means home. But soon, after having graduated from high school, he’ll be headed to The Hun School in New Jersey.
“I had a camp at BC and a coach from one of the post grad academies pulled me aside and we talked,” Mackinnon recalled. “At that point, it was between a couple of other schools and then another coach gave me Coach (Todd) Smith’s number at Hun and then the second I took a tour, I wanted to go to Hun. So I made my decision then and there.”
The path he’s taking is certainly not a new one but it’s also one fewer players seem to take these days. But in his mind, he knew it was the right move.
“I was 100 percent sure,” he said of going the post-grad route. “It was more about going in terms of maturity, because I’m so young. That was kind of a big part of the decision. But being able to play bigger football at a school like that, you knew good stuff would happen.”
In terms of recruiting, Mackinnon thought that this would certainly help. It didn’t take long for that to happen.
“Before I said I was going to Hun, I really had no recruiting really at all,” he said. “Just a couple of D3 schools…I’ve always dreamed of playing Power 5 football, of playing against big schools. I just didn’t expect it to come so fast.
“I haven’t played at Hun yet and here we are already,” Mackinnon added. “I’m just glad the coaches see what I can do and that they’re taking a chance on me. I’ve just got to prove it to people out on the field this season, hopefully if we have one.”
Thus far, UMass, Colgate and Lafayette have offered, while he said he’s been hearing from Boston College, Rutgers, Yale, Monmouth, and Stony Brook.
But it was the offer he got from UVa last month that seems to have played the biggest factor in his process, especially considering the impact that the NCAA-imposed dead period has had on things.
“It very much would have,” he said of camps potentially being a benefit to him. “This summer we had a whole gauntlet of camps I was going to. We were going to do a lot of them. And what’s worse is I can’t do any unofficial visits at all. Coach (Garett) Tujague at Virginia said the earliest I could get a visit down there would be January, which is pretty late if you ask me.”
“It came out of the blue,” Mackinnon said of the UVa offer. “I had never talked to them before. And then Coach Smith told me that Coach Tujague wanted me to get on a Zoom call with him and they offered me then and there. First time ever talking to him. I’m excited to get down there. I’ve done my online research but it’s really not the same as seeing it in person.”
UVa has some recent history, obviously, when it comes to going after Hun School post-grad recruits. In current tackle Bobby Haskins, Tujague saw a TE who he thought had a lot of potential. In Mackinnon’s case, he’s always been a linemen but he can still glean a lot from Haskins’ experience.
“Yeah, I’ve talked to him,” Mackinnon said. “Coach Tujague gave me some guys to talk to and he was one of them. We’ve had a few conversations. One of the things he told me was that he did a half year at Hun and then went to Virginia early and he wouldn’t recommend doing it that way. I wasn’t thinking too seriously about doing it that way anyway but it’s good to get his feedback. He thinks that was a mistake he made. He would’ve rather done the full year and he said that made the transition harder for him that he didn’t.”
Tujague has continually been someone Mackinnon says he gets a good vibe from. And though his hopes of visiting soon were dashed by the recent extension of the dead period, UVa remains in a great spot.
“He’s a pretty nice dude, a pretty cool guy,” he said of Virginia’s O-line coach. “We’ve talked a lot about the culture of the team and of the program and all that. He seems like a nice guy. I still haven’t had a chance yet to get on a Zoom call with Coach (Bronco) Mendenhall yet but from I’ve heard he’s a pretty cool dude too. He’s a cowboy and all that, so it’ll be cool to find out.”
So what’s important as he works his way through this?
“I’ve always wanted to play high-level football,” Mackinnon explained. “That’s always been a goal of mine. But I also want to get a really good education. My dream in life is to make prosthetics for athletes, so getting a good education is very important. So, schools like Virginia, where you’re talking about the academics being some of the best in the country while also playing a high level of football, that’s kind of what I’m looking for.
“It feels great,” he added. “Coming from a small town in the middle of nowhere—Lakeville, Massachusetts nobody knows where that is—not many people do this kind of thing. Not many people do stuff like this. And to be able to represent my town and do something like this, it’s a great feeling.”
As far as the spring and summer goes, Mackinnon was fortunate to be able to keep lifting with regularity, something he hopes will prepare him for the fall.
“I’m lucky enough to have a rack in my basement,” he said. “So I have like 500 pounds, so I can do stuff there. I’ve been going to a gym on and off, going to as many places as I can to get some work in. You’ve just got to do what you can.”
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